wasn't the one answered by the cards. The reading always gave you a broader world-view than your tiny query encompassed; your subconscious' way of reminding you that your light was an infinitesimal dot in the vast sea of experience and being.
Valet of Cups. Reversed.
Hanged Man. Reversed.
Knight of Cups. Reversed.
Ten of Cups. Reversed.
The Emperor. Reversed.
'Not much Grail influence there,' I muttered as I swept them up and put them in my pocket. Struggling to my feet, I crouched and duck-walked into the access shaft. I had some walking to do, and there was probably another climb in there somewhere. Time enough to think about what the cards revealed.
XXXIII
I was a child of the Crowley generation, those magi who came into an understanding of magick in the era following the Great Beast's death. In the era following the occult revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s, actually. We were symbolically aware, charged with an understanding that every culture had its own sigils, its own systems of magickal reckoning. Crowley appealed to us because of the illusion he provided of being a great synthesizer. He spent a great deal of his life trying to convince people of his identity, and in the end, he forgot even that.
Crowley's entire tarot deck was a living thing-highly stylized, overflowing with a profusion of symbols, always fluid-in contrast with the more traditional decks. Like the version of the Marseille deck that Philippe used. While occultists before Crowley like Etteilla and Waite opted for simple designs that plainly evoked meaning, Crowley layered his deck with excess baggage, hiding everything in plain sight so as to obfuscate the real meaning within a wash of noisy symbolism. His cards tended to explode any given query into a profusion of interpretations, but I liked having more than one choice. A selection made it easier for me to understand the true path I should take.
Philippe's deck, though, was one of the Tarot de Marseille designs, one of the oldest patterns still used. There were variations of the Marseille pattern-two primarily-and over the years, printing mistakes and bad color correction had turned those two variants into a dozen or so. In Philippe's deck, the Fool was missing the seat of his pants and the small feline prancing behind him looked like it was about to claw his scrotum and penis. There was only one deck that featured a Fool with a bare ass and dangling sex parts. The John Noblet deck.
There was only one specimen of the deck-in the Bibliotheque Nationale-and it was missing a few cards-half the Swords. Marielle and I had gone to see the deck once, and when I had pointed this out to her, she had said something enigmatic. Something that hinted she knew more than I. As that was a common occurrence in those days, I hadn't given it much thought.
She had been right, in this case. There were other copies. Philippe's deck was complete, and the cards had been made in the last twenty years. Like Piotr, Philippe had probably made his own deck, and the cards, while worn and creased and stained with ink, felt like modern cardstock.
The Noblet cards were simple, line drawings filled in with a few colors. None of the confusion and motion of Crowley's deck. And yet, even with these simple drawings, there were hidden meanings to uncover, hidden symbols that would influence the querent's mind. I hadn't touched the cards very much after I had chosen them; I didn't want Philippe's influence to start changing them. I wanted a pure reading. One without too much noise. A reading that would clarify my confusion, that would show me the one path through the chaos of Philippe's death. I didn't care who wanted the Crown more; I didn't care who was manipulating whom, or how deep the thread-winding went.
I wanted to know my own mind.
The cards were all reversed, and typically that could be read as an error by the fortune teller, an inversion of the deck that, by being endemic, indicated a full rotation. A full circle. But I wasn't inclined to use that excuse. Let them all be reversed. It had been that sort of week.
The Valet of Cups was an awakening. Crowley's card was feminine-the Princess of Cups-and she was the genesis of an Idea. The wellspring of the Imagination. She was-
In Nicols' last reading, the Princess of Cups had been a librarian figure. A woman who had given us guidance. The Chorus had tweaked her spirit, awakening the imagination in her, and she had become a rhapsodomancer-an interpreter of events filtered through a linguistic proxy. Devorah had found her voice in Milton's
That was a debt I would have to pay someday, and the Valet of Cups was a reminder. Reversed, he was the closing of the springs. The shuttering of the mind. Water, buried beneath the earth, not yet allowed to bubble forth. Instead of being the awakening of the spirit to its higher calling, he was the loss of illumination. He was the soul, trapped in the flesh, bound to stay in this world a bit longer.
I had come back from the sky after all the souls had been freed in Portland. I had come back, because I hadn't earned the right to go on. Too much blood on my hands. Too much that I had to atone for.
But it hadn't been Death. Or the Tower. Or the Nine of Swords. It was the Valet of Cups. The postponed awakening.
Above the Valet was the Hanged Man, who, in being reversed, was the only figure that appeared to be standing right side up. He was the Fisher King, and I had seen him in Nicols' reading too. He had been in the same place in the spread-the position over the card that represented the querent. He was the Heavenly influence, that which floated above. In being inverted, he was the antithesis of transformation. He was a magus caught by indecision-caught by too many choices, too many paths. Crushed by too much knowledge, he could not act. He was, indeed, trapped. His foot was caught in a loop of his own mental peregrinations, and he could not move. His hands were bound behind him, further symbolism of his failure to contain his wisdom (unlike the Magician card, a figure whose hands were free to indicate both Heaven and Earth). He hung over my head like the sword that hung over Damocles.
It had been hanging there a long time, hadn't it? Ever since the duel on the bridge. Antoine and I had fought over Marielle, and I had fled Paris, and the threat of discovery had been a persistent fear ever since. Stay hidden, and keep the deception alive. Don't let them find you; don't let them hunt you.
The Ten of Cups signified a fulfilled life, one filled with the contentment of family. In Crowley's deck, it was the Tree of the Sephiroth, the ten spheres of Life. Reversed, it was ten cups all spilling their wine. Noblet's wine was dark red, and it didn't take much to read the card as signifying the loss of life. All that blood, spilling out of all those chalices. Positioned behind the Valet, the Ten was all the history I had been fleeing. All that blood.
Below the Valet was the Knight of Cups, the physical manifestation of the mystical element arrayed above. In Crowley, he was an enigma. An individual who wore a mask and whose motives could never be ascertained. He was aloof, dangerous, and volatile. In another time, I would have liked to have drawn this card. He was the wolf, hidden among the sheep. The Noblet Knight carried the Grail and his expression was filled with sympathy and understanding. He was an insightful companion, an empathetic reader. One who intuitively understood the suffering of others.
Reversed, he was a buffoon. A man who was unaware that the contents of his cup were spilling out, splashing all over his clothes, his horse, and the ground. His expression became one of confusion, of chaotic frustration. The reversed Knight does not know why the ones he loves have hurt him so. He can't figure where all
